Friday, July 28, 2017

Chile's Juan Fernández archipelago was, for years, the home of castaway Alexander Selkirk - the real-life Robinson Crusoe.

In the course of a career spent traveling throughout the
Americas, I’ve had the opportunity to visit numerous offshore Pacific islands—mostly,
though, in South America, where the Juan Fernández
archipelago is one of my favorite destinations in this category (I omit Rapa Nui/Easter Island
here, due to its 2000 mile/3500 km distance from the mainland). I’ve set foot
on many of archipelagic Chile’s
islands, starting with the Chiloé group
in the south.

The Farallones are about 25 nautical miles west of San Francisco.

North of the Equator, I’ve not had so much experience. One
highlight was a trip to Mexico’s Isla Cedros—off the Baja
California coast—where I caught a fishing-boat lift to the more distant Islas San Benito (There
I saw northern elephant seals and, on the voyage back, the crew treated me to a
scallop ceviche). Having spent decades in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve often
seen the outlines of the forbidding Farallon Islands,
and have always yearned to see them up close and personal.

The Farallones' rugged topography helps make them a wildlife reserve (photo, public domain)

That’s not easy, because, though the Farallones belong politically
to the City and County of
San Francisco, they’re desert islands off limits to the public at large. In
the 19th century, collectors gathered hundreds of thousands of seabird eggs for
sale on the mainland, and US Navy and Coast Guard long kept a presence, but
today the archipelago is under protection of US Fish and Wildlife Service as
the Farallon Islands
National Wildlife Refuge. Only research biologists have access to the
islands themselves, where several buildings remain from their previous
incarnations.

Once a naval and coast guard base, the Farallones now host research biologists.

Earlier this month, though, we booked a day tour to the
islands with Álvaro’s Adventures,
from Pillar
Point Harbor at Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. Álvaro Jaramillo,
whom I’ve known for some years, lives there but also leads birding trips to Argentina
and Chile, where I usually work. This, though, was an opportunity to see
something new.

Nesting murres and guano cover much of the rugged Farallones terrain.

Many, if not most, of the other passengers were enthusiastic
birders who braved the rough seas in hopes of expanding their lifelists—though
some were repeat customers. I’m only a casual birder, but the sight of islands
covered with birds and guano reminds me of my experiences in the penguin-rich
South Atlantic, and the presence of buildings on remote islands reminded me—on a
midsummer’s day that was no less chilly than the Strait of Magellan—of
structures in Tierra
del Fuego. It’s also whale-watching season, though we didn’t nearly as
close to the grays and humpbacks here as I have in antipodean destinations like
Península
Valdés (where it’s now breeding season for right whales) and Isla
Carlos III (summer feeding grounds for southern humpbacks). The Farallones
are also a place to spot great white sharks, though July’s a little too early
for that.

Unfortunately, at the Farallones we never so close to the whales as I was to this southern humpback in the Strait of Magellan.

Later this year and early next year, I should get the chance
to revisit some of my South American islands, but there’s one notable omission
on my offshore lifelist. I’d really like the chance to visit Chile’s Isla Mocha,
off the coast of the Araucanía region.
Nearly half of it’s a national reserve and, though it might not complete my
insular aspirations, it would be a major step forward.

Chile's Isla Mocha is on my wishlist, even if it won't look the way it did to 16th-century Dutch pirates.

With over 30 years living and traveling in Latin America, I write guidebooks to the "Southern Cone" countries - so called because of their shape on the map - of Chile and Argentina. I'm especially interested in the remote, scenic Patagonian region overlapping the two countries. I'm sole author of Moon Handbooks to Chile & Easter Island and to Patagonia, including the Falkland Islands. I've also authored the National Geographic Traveler guide to Argentina, and DK Eyewitness Guides to Argentina and Chile.
I have a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley, and have done research in Peru, Chile, Argentina and the Falklands, where I spent a year as a Fulbright-Hays scholar.
My home base is Oakland, California, but I spend five months a year in South America. I often stay in Buenos Aires, where my Argentine wife and I have an apartment in the barrio of Palermo.
I speak fluent Spanish, less fluent German, serviceable Portuguese and desperation French.
Any questions, please contact me at southerncone (at) mac.com, or leave comments by clicking on the word "comment" at the bottom of each entry. Comments are moderated, but I get to them quickly.